Please Note: The gallery will ask for a $5-$25 donation in support of the artists at the door. Doors open at 6:30 pm and music starts at 7 pm.

“This is my emerging from the cocoon, as it were,” says Maurice Oliver. The musician, originally from New York City, will perform pieces from his still-developing album, “Santa Fe Sweet”—the first music he’s produced since moving to Eldorado in June 2018. “This wonderful place informs everything about the music from what sounds I program in the synthesizers to what other instruments I’m putting together.” Accompanied by his brother Steve and bassist Gary Paul Hermus, on February 23 Oliver will unveil his reactions to his new environment in an immersive concert experience forged from abstract visuals and unconventional, highly eclectic music.

Oliver’s music incorporates elements of electronica, downtempo, house, techno, jazz, funk, soul, and worldbeat. He draws from a wide range of influences, beginning with the summer conga drums and church gospel music he heard growing up on Staten Island and leading to his study of orchestral percussion at the Juilliard School of Music. Living in Amsterdam in the late 1980’s,when the city was a burgeoning center of electronic production, introduced Oliver to influences from across the world. The result is the musician’s unique, texturized aesthetic: a modern music which is neither exclusively organic nor exclusively electronic.

“I must be fearless in improvisation, fully committed and fully present,” says Las Cruces saxophonist Rhonda Taylor. “Otherwise the quality of the moment is diminished.” For a leap of faith like this, it helps to have a buddy. Enter Santa Fe soprano and theatre-maker Tara Khozein, who collaborates with Taylor on this evening of performance at form & concept. They will debut improvisational scores that incorporate instrumentals, vocals, and gestures.

“Tara and I have a sort of Venn diagram of skill sets,” Taylor says. “What I love about working and performing with her is how we both are able to push and pull the other one beyond her comfort zone, in what I believe is a very beautiful and unpredictable way.” The Tara + Rhonda Show 2018 is the duo’s second performance at form & concept, following last December’s The Tara + Rhonda Show: Fully Clothed and Highly Introverted. The gallery will ask for a sliding scale donation of $5-$25 at the door in support of the artists. Doors open at 6:30 pm, and the performance begins at 7:00 pm.

New Mexico School for the Arts is in the midst of renovating and repurposing their new Railyard location, and they’re wasting no time injecting fresh creative energy into the arts district. The arts high school presents a special performance series at form & concept, hosted by faculty members and showcasing outstanding student musicians, fiction writers and poets. Make sure to mark your calendar for NMSA performances on the first Thursday of each month.

New Mexico School for the Arts is in the midst of renovating and repurposing their new Railyard location, and they’re wasting no time injecting fresh creative energy into the arts district. The arts high school presents a special performance series at form & concept, hosted by faculty members and showcasing outstanding student musicians, fiction writers and poets. Make sure to mark your calendar for NMSA performances on the first Thursday of each month.

Performance
ppoacher ppoacher & Sevda Choir

Thursday, September 6, 7:30-9 pm

The gallery will ask for a $5-$25 donation in support of the artists at the door.

Caitlin Brothers is going places—specifically, all across the Southeastern United States. “The new tour passes through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas,” says the Santa Fe musician, who performs under the moniker ppoacher ppoacher. “I’m trying to split it between familiar territory and places I’ve never explored.” That’s a good way to describe her musical repertoire for an upcoming Matron Records tour launch event at form & concept. Brothers and her new bandmate Nathan Smerage will perform songs from the band’s 2017 debut album, along with some new material they’ve written together. She’ll also sing traditional Balkan music with Santa Fe’s Sevda Choir, which welcomed her into its ranks a few months ago.

PerformanceNMSA First Thursdays / September

Thursday, September 6, 6 pm

New Mexico School for the Arts is in the midst of renovating and repurposing their new Railyard location, and they’re wasting no time injecting fresh creative energy into the district. The arts high school presents a special performance series at form & concept, hosted by faculty members and showcasing student musicians, fiction writers and poets. This month’s event includes readings by three young writers, and a music program of small-set jazz duos curated by Jazz Studies teacher Orlando Madrid. Make sure to mark your calendar for NMSA performances on the first Thursday of each month.

Flutist Jesse Tatum and vocalist Tara Khozein join forces for a performance of new compositions in form & concept’s atrium. The New Mexico-based artists met while performing in Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return art installation in summer of 2017. They carried the colorful, experimental energy of that project into a new collaboration, weaving together woodwinds and vocals, music and theater. “We trade off being accompaniment to each other,” says Khozein. “We are two melodic-slash-percussive wind instruments in conversation.” Tickets priced at a sliding scale of $5-$25 are available at https://fluteandvoice.bpt.me.

The duo will present a broad and diverse program that combines elegant melodic and textural materials with comedy and absurdity. Tatum, who serves as Principal Flute of the Santa Fe Symphony among other prestigious appointments, will play flute, bass flute and piccolo. Khozein will provide vocals and flex the theater skills that she also employs in her work with the local, experimental troupe Theater Grottesco. “I speak often, there is lots of play of vocal percussion through consonants,” says Khozein. “Jesse plays lots of florid fast things that only woodwinds can do, and uses lots of extended techniques, and we trade off being accompaniment to each other. With this instrumentation, the playing field is so level. We are two melodic slash percussive wind instruments in conversation.”

Tara Khozein and Jesse Tatum first met in an alternate universe. Khozein was dressed from head to toe in black-and-white, with matching makeup covering every inch of exposed skin. Tatum sported a transparent raincoat and fairy makeup, and wielded a flute. They were both solo performers in Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return, for the local art installation’s 2017 Summer in the Multiverse event series, and something instantly clicked between them. “We had a few interactions in character in the exhibition and backstage, and I developed a big artist crush on her,” Khozein explains.

That initial creative attraction blossomed into a full-fledged collaboration, which makes its Santa Fe debut at form & concept on Saturday, July 14 at 7 pm. The New Mexico artists, both sopranos, will perform a new series of duets that combine melodic and percussive instrumentals and vocals. Tickets priced at a sliding scale of $5-$25 are available at https://fluteandvoice.bpt.me.

“Art making is social for me,” says Khozein. “I watch other artists in admiration, and then I kind of shyly approach them, the way you’d approach a middle school crush.” In recent years, she has collaborated closely with acclaimed saxophonist Rhonda Taylor and dancer Emmaly Wiederholt. She’ll often approach artists who are interested in reframing classical music for contemporary audiences.

“Seeing Jesse in that raincoat shredding virtuosic music on her flute made me be like, ‘That’s someone I could do an amazing recital with,’” Khozein says. “Later I saw her perform at SITE with David Felberg, and the casual way she connected to the audience was really in line with how I like to perform. I was like, ‘That’s someone who is tearing down the pretension surrounding classical music.’”

The new duo built a broad and diverse program that combines elegant melodic and textural materials with comedy and absurdity. Tatum, who serves as Principal Flute of the Santa Fe Symphony among other prestigious appointments, will play flute, bass flute and piccolo. Khozein will provide vocals and flex the theater skills that she also employs in her work with the local, experimental troupe Theater Grottesco.

“I speak often, there is lots of play of vocal percussion through consonants,” says Khozein. “Jesse plays lots of florid fast things that only woodwinds can do, and uses lots of extended techniques, and we trade off being accompaniment to each other. With this instrumentation, the playing field is so level. We are two melodic slash percussive wind instruments in conversation.”

The gallery will ask for a $5-$25 donation at the door in support of the artist.

Composer and multidisciplinary artist Nathan Wheeler ensnares form & concept in a web of “ghost detection circuits”—also known as EMF meters—for this improvisational music and dance performance. The psychic energy of Wheeler and his spectators will trigger the sensors and influence swirling visuals and soundscapes. Wheeler is a New York-based artist who works at the intersection of sound design, dance, clothing design, video, and interactive programming. He has shown work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Denver Art Museum, and at festivals around the globe.

Wheeler isn’t a ghost hunter, though he’s on the trail of something just as ephemeral in his innovative performance artworks. “My work often taps into the supernatural as a source of inspiration and healing,” says the New York-based artist. “What sort of energies do we project, and how can I use technology to make them perceptible?” He tackles that question in a new improvisational performance piece at form & concept, which utilizes EMF detectors and other technology to influence audiovisual aspects of the work. “We’re constantly casting psychic energy into the world. My audience at form & concept will be able to see it and hear it,” Wheeler explains.

form & concept has two events lined up for the weekend, and they’re not to be missed! Tonight is the closing reception for Debra Baxter’s solo exhibition Tooth & Nail (Friday, 6/15, 5-7 pm). On Saturday, we’re hosting Nathan Wheeler for an experimental music and performance piece among the artworks of Inner Orbit (Saturday, 6/16, 7-8:30 pm). Alex De Vore of Santa Fe Reporter chose Nathan’s event as a calendar pick this week. Here’s an excerpt:

Ever heard of an EMF meter? They’re those gadgets that detect electromagnetic fields or, in some cases, psychic energy and possibly ghosts. Spooky, right? But don’t be scared; New York-based multi-disciplinary artist and dancer Nathan Wheeler plans to use them for a non-spooky event.

Paul Weideman covered the performance in this week’s Pasatiempo. Here’s an excerpt:

Wheeler embarks on a communal experience with living people and perhaps with some more ethereal collaborators. One of his chief tools in this process is an instrument that can sense electromagnetic fields (EMFs). “We’ll all be sitting in a space, but basically what I’m doing is using ghost-detection circuits [EMF meters] to read the different sort of invisible energies that are in the space,” said the artist, who is known for his improvisational music and dance performances. “These circuits do things like detect electromagnetic interference and static electricity, but they also are supposed to detect ghosts.”

Learn more about both events in this blog post. We’ll see you this weekend!

Launch Party

Emerging Media Alliance

June is Emerging Media Month in Santa Fe, as declared by this rebellious crew of new media pioneers! We’re proud to be part of the Emerging Media Alliance, along with local legends such as Meow Wolf, Simply Social Media, Descartes Labs and SITE Santa Fe. This launch party for EMA offers an inside look at the Currents New Media Festival exhibition—and an opportunity to mingle with our new mayor, Alan Webber. This is a free, registration-only event. Sign up at the link below.

Image: Parallel Studios.

Closing Reception

Debra Baxter: Tooth & Nail

Friday, June 15th, 5-7 PM

Join Debra Baxter for a last look at her solo exhibition Tooth & Nailat this closing reception on Friday, June 15 from 5 to 7 pm. The show officially closes on June 16, 2018.

Baxter frequently picks up materials she’s never used before, searching for novel ways to engage the histories of sculpture, jewelry, weaponry or drapery. For Tooth & Nail, the events of the #MeToo movement have fed into her continued interest in the strength, vulnerability and the raw power of the female voice. The courage of these women has activated work with a blend of toughness and vulnerability. “These contrasting materials carry a similar spirit,” she explains. “My sculptures sometimes look delicate, but when they’re finished, they are structurally resilient.”

Performance

Nathan Wheeler

Saturday, June 16th, 7-8:30 PM

The gallery will ask for a $5-$25 donation at the door in support of the artist.

Composer and multidisciplinary artist Nathan Wheeler ensnares form & concept in a web of “ghost detection circuits”—also known as EMF meters—for this improvisational music and dance performance. The psychic energy of Wheeler and his spectators will trigger the sensors and influence swirling visuals and soundscapes. Wheeler is a New York-based artist who works at the intersection of sound design, dance, clothing design, video, and interactive programming. He has shown work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Denver Art Museum, and at festivals around the globe.